The manners of the poets were not unlike: both of them were well bred, well natur'd, amorous, and libertine, at least in their writings, it may be also in their lives.

Their studies were the same, philosophy and philology.
Both of them were knowing in astronomy, of which Ovid's books of the Roman feasts, and Chaucer's treatise of the Astrolabe, are sufficient witnesses.

But Chaucer was likewise an astrologer, as were Virgil, Horace, Persius, and Manilius.

Both writ with wonderful facility and clearness: neither were great inventors; for Ovid only copied the Grecian fables; and most of Chaucer's stones were taken from his Italian contemporaries, or their predecessors.[9] Boccace his _Decameron_ was first publish'd; and from thence our Englishman has borrow'd many of his _Canterbury Tales_; yet that of _Palamon and Arcite_ was written in all probability by some Italian wit in a former age, as I shall prove hereafter.

The tale of Grizild was the invention of Petrarch; by him sent to Boccace; from whom it came to Chaucer.
_Troilus and Cressida_ was also written by a Lombard author; but much amplified by our English translator, as well as beautified; the genius of our countrymen, in general, being rather to improve an invention, than to invent themselves; as is evident not only in our poetry, but in many of our manufactures.